Just before he headed out on a national tour, we caught up with Singer-Songwriter Patrick James for a quick chat about his new EP Broken Lines, touring with Boy & Bear and his plans for the rest of the year.
Congratulations on the release of Broken Lines. I’ve had a couple of listens to it since its release and I’m really enjoying it. What was the inspiration behind this one?
Thanks man, cheers. Really appreciate it. Well it mainly derives from touring so much over the last couple of years. It’s an extension from the first one, the first one was pretty chilled out acoustic sounding, and just from touring with a live band I wrote these songs, and there was just a natural progression in the recording studio from taking it from the live performance into the recorded work. So to answer your question, it was pretty much from touring so much, and getting in to playing with a few other guys, and writing with that in mind.
Did you find yourself approaching this EP differently to All About to Change?
I pretty much recorded All About to Change by myself, playing all the instruments, whilst another guy, who is in the band, recording it. So a very a recording process of months and months of layering in and trying to do drum takes on my own. I’m not really a drummer of anything. So that was one where I did all the instruments myself. The second one was really different; because it was the first time I actually had a full band to work with. And the guys were really great to come on board with that. It was good fun doing it. It was cool.
What’s the reaction been like to the EP so far?
I think it’s gone pretty well. The first couple of weeks we were very happy with how the online sales and iTunes sales went, and all that kind of stuff. I think people are getting the idea that I have been on the road for a little while now, and they have seen me play with the band. I think they were maybe expecting something a little bit bigger sounding. It’s really kind of fun to do that, to get used to the different songs and different sounds, and I think people are liking it so far.
I was just curious about the alternative version of Messages, what brought that about?
That was really fun to do. It was just one of those things, a bit of online content, something extra and a little different. I guess I just wanted to flip the song on its head a little bit. I haven’t ever recorded with electronic beats or anything like that; it was on piano as well. So that was one of those experiments where I was like “I just want to take this on”. Take the lead single from the EP and just flip it on its head and see what happens. At first I was a bit unsure if I wanted to put that out there, because it is so different, but then I started thinking that it was a fresh sound compared to what is on the EP. There is something, I don’t know, cool about that recording. I had a lot of fun doing it. I don’t know if that is a direction that I will take in the future, but it was one of those spur of the moment kind of things. Glad I put it out there.
Is it just Messages you have an alternative cut for? Or did you rework other songs too?
Yeah. Maybe I just release an EP that has all alternative versions, with electronic beats and everything. But that was the only one. There is another track called “Fight With Me” that I had a very raw, just acoustic version of it, but that’s still sitting on my computer and I don’t think I’ll do anything with it. I have put up a Youtube clip of just an acoustic performance. But yeah it was just that song [Messages] that I wanted to flip on its head really.
As you mentioned earlier you’ve been on the road a lot this year, do you find it easy to write on the road?
Not this year. I haven’t written much on the road. I’ve just not been in the headspace to do it. I think when you’re touring you are waiting around, but it’s energy sapping. You’re gearing up to the show that night and there’s a lot of travelling. For me it’s a really personal thing, to write, and I find it hard to write on the road. I wrote all those songs that are on the EP before I started touring. I had a bank of songs I’d written, and those were the ones that were working best in the live setting, so I just chose to record them. It’s one of those things, sometimes it’s hard to write on the road. I might start an idea of something, but I normally start getting nervous from about 3pm onwards, so it’s hard to continue that.
I guess on the road you would pick up ideas, snippets of conversations that you store somewhere and use later when you’re writing?
Yeah definitely; it’s one of those things, you might see something or something triggers a little lyric idea and you just quickly record it in your phone or on your computer or something. I definitely find that once I get back, and when I’m in a mellow state of mind, those ideas are fleshed out again and I can work on them easier.
How do you approach the songwriting? do you start with the lyrics? Or do you start with the music?
I definitely start with the melody first and I start with chords. That’s the really exciting part for me, creating melody and the lyrics come after that. I think I want to change the way I write. I want to do a bit of co-writing with people and see how they do it and I feel like I could learn a lot from writing with other people as well. But at the moment it’s always been that I start with the melody and then the lyrics come after that.
Do you have any particular songwriters that have been inspirations to your writing? And why?
I get a lot of inspiration from touring with artists like Josh Pyke, seeing their songs performed live and then it creates something new and fresh in that artist, for me, when I see them live. So I go back and write, I tend to write a lot of my songs after I’ve been to a festival or a live gig, it’s really inspiring.
As I mentioned you’ve been on the road a lot this year, how did you find the tours with Pete Murray and Boy & Bear?
It was awesome. Boy & Bear especially, I knew those guys before going out on the road with them. By the end of the tour, it was one of those massively long tours, all regional shows, its just really great to tour with the people you can call friends or mates. It makes things really fun. That was a great tour. They’ve kind of been one of my favourite bands for couple of years, so that was one of those moments where we were kind of pinching ourselves and going “this is really cool”. Really enjoyed that one.
Any particular highlights or fun stories from the tour?
The last couple of gigs we were getting up on stage and jamming on their song “Part Time Believer”. That was a really cool moment. Like I said before it was such a big tour, and we didn’t get the chance to do that the first half. But once the tour warmed up we all started jamming. Actually we were all wearing Boy & Bear t-shirts so it was really funny and interesting moment.
Your just about to head out on a national tour, do you have any pre-tour rituals you go through? Any last minute packing?
For this tour, I think our drummer has been nominated for that Ice Bucket Challenge that’s been going around, so I think we’re going to be doing that before we go off on tour. I think its just one of those things where we’ll rehearse as much as we can, I think tonight might be our last rehearsal too. There’s always pre-gig rituals that we do, but mostly I’m just looking forward to getting on the road with the guys, it’s going to be a fun tour.
Other than the obvious, what are you looking forward to most about this tour?
I think the Corner Hotel is going to be a really big one. It’s probably going to be the biggest show I’ve done so far. I’ve played a bunch of shows there before supporting other artists, but never actually headlined myself. So that’s going to be good. Obviously it’s going to be great to play Sydney in front of a home-town crowd, those are always really good shows. Those two shows especially. But in answer to your question, all of them man, they’re all going to be great.
What can people, who perhaps may not have seen you before, expect from one of the upcoming shows?
One of the things I like most about live performing is that you can do what you want to do with songs that are already recorded. I think sometimes people go into a live gig expecting that they’re going to be exactly like the recorded version. But I like trying to mix them up a little, create something new and exciting with each song. I really like doing all the showy things, like little interludes into new songs, we’re taking a lighting guy on tour with us this time, and it’s the first time we’ve done that which is cool.
On the last tour I saw you, you snuck a cover into the set-list, are you planning on playing any covers this time round?
Yeah, I am doing a cover; it’s one that I recorded for a TV show so I’m going to be playing that song. I think I put a Facebook post out last year just before I did that tour and I did the Justin Timberlake song because there was really an overwhelming response to that song. It was really fun doing that song, but this time we’re going with something that is an Aussie classic.
What do you have planned for the rest of the year? A well-earned rest?
I would like to have a bit of a rest, but I think I’m going to try and keep the life of this EP going for the rest of the year. So I’m thinking of doing a solo tour, probably at the end of the year, but that’s still in the works. Then after that I’ll obviously have the Christmas break off and then probably into an album cycle after that, which will be very exciting.
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Broken Lines is available now. Patrick James continues his tour next tonight in Adelaide at A Music Warehouse project, before heading to Fremantle’s Fly By Night tomorrow night. He then travels up and down the East Coast through to the end of the month. For tickets, dates and more details, head to patrickjames.com.au
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